


Sixteen Fun Facts about the Avengers

by miscellea



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Disney Movies as therapy, F/M, I have weird head canons, Kitchen Slave!Clint, M/M, Steve can cook, ordered list format
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-28
Updated: 2012-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-08 19:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 6,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miscellea/pseuds/miscellea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sixteen things about the Avengers that you will never hear from SHIELD's PR department.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tony Stark quit drinking two years ago. No one noticed.

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written in outline format, but sadly I could not get AO3 to play along. Each bullet point has been turned into a chapter instead. This makes for some very short chapters, but please overlook it? Thank you!

**1\. Tony Stark quit drinking two years ago. No one noticed.**

Until Steve did.

__It’s a freak accident, really. They need to go and Tony is whining about finishing his drink so Steve plucks the tumbler out of his hand and knocks the contents back in one go._ _

__Then he stops. Perplexed._ _

__He looks at Tony who glares at him, daring him to say a single word._ _

__Steve doesn’t, but he could. Because, while it’s been a while since he last tried to really get skunked, he knows what whiskey tastes like and what it doesn’t taste like is apple juice._ _

__“I was public about it at first.” Tony explains later once they’re back from the mission and the debrief is over, grousing over a highball glass of what he has deliberately dressed up as a gin and tonic, but is really just lemon soda with a lime slice floating in it. “My stock dropped. Apparently investors prefer me as a high-functioning alcoholic.” He adds, bitter._ _

__Steve doesn’t touch that last part, although it galls him and gives him that itchy feeling in his knuckles that he used to get when someone would complain about the newsreels at the theater; the itch that had always ended with him getting the snot beaten out of him in an alley. He closes his fists._ _

__He doesn’t start fights anymore. He finishes them._ _

__“Why did you stop?” He asks, because someone should. He’s seen footage of Tony from the bad old days before Tony became Iron Man and fulfilled his own potential. It’s not pretty and Steve is more glad than he can possibly say that they are over now._ _

__“Have you ever seen a hardcore alcoholic dry out?” Tony asks and Steve nods._ _

__… and he has. Just once. One of the commandos in his unit had a bad patch and then decided to straighten himself out. They’d gotten some leave and instead of hitting the bars, he and some of the other guys had taken their comrade to a remote cabin where they started the process. It had been… ugly. Paranoia, nightmares, shakes, hallucinations –the whole nine yards._ _

__“Well, imagine going through that in a cave surrounded by armed terrorists who want you to build a big fucking missile while your heart is running on a car battery.” Tony makes a face. “I lost interest in getting shitfaced after that. Went back once, but it didn’t stick.”_ _

__That was… okay, fair enough._ _

__“… but why apple juice?” Steve asks because that’s a sticking point for him. He can accept the rest of it except… apple juice?_ _ _Really_ __?_ _

__Tony shrugs. “Because whiskey is hard to fake and Clint keeps drinking all the iced tea without refilling the pitcher. Take it up with him.”_ _


	2. The Hulk Cage in Avengers Tower is actually not reinforced even slightly...

**2.** **The Hulk Cage in Avengers Tower is actually not reinforced even slightly beyond some sound and fire proofing. The only thing keeping him in there is four television screens that show educational cartoons 24/7.**

The only two people who know are Tony and Bruce.




__“Are you sure about this?” Bruce asks and a slight tension along the edge of his jaw is the only clue he lets slip that he isn’t. At all._ _

__“Name me one time that caging the Other Guy worked.” Tony says twirling a screwdriver in-between his fingers with an ease that would send many a cheerleader into fits of envy. “No, really, I’m listening.”_ _

__“You know it never has.” Bruce sighs._ _

__“…which is why we’re trying something different.” Tony grins. “The Other Guy is territorial, possessive even… but he takes care of his own. When he gets out, the first place he goes is somewhere he feels safe and in control. We’re making sure that he retreats here instead of South America. When I get a chance, the doors will be keyed to his biometrics. They’ll let him in with no fuss, no smashing, and no collateral damage. Then you wake up, select a pair of pants from the cabinet over there, and give us a call.”_ _

__“It’s not going to be that easy.” Bruce tells him sadly._ _

__… only then it is._ _

__Bruce Hulks Out by pure accident when he puts a foot wrong while crossing an old rotten bridge in Louisiana where he’s assisting with some kind of SHIELD investigation. The combination of adrenaline and sudden-onset terror is too much and the Other Guy comes up from the water that Bruce Banner went under._ _

__The junior agents accompanying him have been well trained. As one, they put their guns down and keep their hands where the Other Guy can see them. Most sit down patient as Hulk prowls back and forth in front of them like a confused tom cat, unsettled and ready for a fight only to find that there isn’t one on offer. He escapes shortly thereafter, bounding over the terrain, homing in on a target only he could see, and sending the Army into an unrelenting frenzy._ _

__Coulson finds Bruce passed out naked on the padded floor of what the residents of the Avengers Tower have come to know as the ‘romper room’ some nine hours later. When Bruce comes to, Tony shows him the security footage of the Other Guy climbing up the side of the tower, entering the building through the Quinjet’s hangar bay, carefully making his way through the empty halls with a grace and agility that is frankly awesome to see in action, and then finally entering the cage where he watches Dora until his eyelids start to droop._ _

__“I can’t believe what I’m seeing.” Bruce says._ _

__“I can.” Tony says, justifiably smug for once._ _

__“When you told me about this plan the phrase ‘bull in a china shop’ was all that came to mind.” Bruce insists, hitching his pants up around his waist._ _

__“Funny thing about that.” Tony comments as he pats one of the priceless art deco vases that decorate the hall where the Hulk passed through to access his safe room. “The Mythbusters actually set up a fake china shop during one of their shows and turned some rodeo bulls loose in it. They did it a couple of times, even threw in a clown, but the bulls didn’t tip over a single tea cup.”_ _


	3. Natasha has the world's worst little girl crush on JARVIS.

**3\. Natasha has the world’s worst little girl crush on JARVIS even though they both know he can never reciprocate.**

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(… but he indulges her all the same.)


	4. For the first week after he escaped SHIELD medical, Phil Coulson slept on the sofa in Tony’s master suite...

**4.** **For the first week after he escaped SHIELD medical, Phil Coulson slept on the sofa in Tony’s master suite because it was the one place Fury would never think to look for him.**

During that week, Tony Stark waited on the man hand and foot.




__“I’m just saying. One call from me and I can have Supernanny back on the air within the year.”_ _

__“That’s enough, Stark.”_ _

__“C’mon, Phil, there has to be something you want.”_ _

__“I thought my first name was ‘Agent’?”_ _

__“It was, but I had it changed while you were out cold. It’s ‘Philip’ now. You’re welcome.”_ _

__“Oh my god. If this is how you treat your friends can we go back to being enemies?”_ _

__“Nope. Too late. The ship has sailed. See it go? Wave bye-bye. It’s not coming back. Wait, no, don’t laugh! Shit, you’re coughing now. I’ll get you some water ---just, sit there and think sober thoughts.”_ _

__“Not. Helping.”_ _

__“Uh, what do I… here. Read these. I got these out of storage for you.”_ _

__“… Stark. These are mint condition copies of Captain America’s origin arc… no! Don’t take them out of the sleeves, what are you doing?”_ _

__“What’s the point of a comic book if you can’t read it?”_ _

__“That’s… you’re starting to make sense. This can only be a horrible omen of some kind. No, don’t take them back. I don’t trust you with them.”_ _

__“They’re for you anyway. Dad’s collection. I don’t… it’s weird having them with. You know. Him wandering around.”_ _

__“…maybe you could turn on the television? Extreme Home Makeover is on.”_ _

__“Wait, shit, is it eight already? JARVIS!”_ _

__“………………. It is incredibly unsettling, knowing you watch this show.”_ _

__“Watch it? Hell, where do you think they get a third of their funding? Besides, I’d watch Ty Pennington read the newspaper. Oh don’t look at me like that. Like you wouldn’t.”_ _

__“… quiet. It’s a new episode.”_ _


	5. Steve can cook.

**5.** **Steve can cook. No really, he can COOK** **... but he only does it on certain occasions.**




__“JARVIS! I told you no entry all… oh my god, what is that SMELL.” Tony sits up in his chair like hound that just caught a scent, specifically the one coming from the covered plate in Steve hand. “Is it coming from there?”_ _

__“Maybe.” Steve allows, standing just outside of the workshop’s open door. He tilts the lid up, letting another whiff of a mouthwatering odor waft out to Tony’s twitching nostrils. “I think so.”_ _

__“Give it here!”_ _

__Steve holds the plate away from Tony, up high where he can’t reach it and steps backwards. “Come and get it.”_ _

__Tony makes a grab for the plate, misses, moves forward, tries again, and this time he catches the edge. Steve lets him have it while simultaneously saying, “Now, please, JARVIS.”_ _

__The workshop door slides shut under its own power and the sound of a lock ticking over echoes in the narrow corridor, but Tony isn’t paying attention. He’s too busy digging into a plate of pot roast like he hadn’t eaten in three days… which wasn’t impossible._ _

__“Oh my god, you locked me out of my own shop and I don’t even CARE.” He says around a mouthful of potato. “What is in this? Magic?”_ _

__“A bay leaf and some red wine.” Steve replies as Tony hugs the plate to his chest like it’s going to be stolen from him at any second –which is not an unreasonable sentiment, considering they share quarters with Hawkeye and Thor. “You know there’s a table upstairs and some bread.”_ _

__“It tastes like magic.” Tony insists. “You realize I’m going to hack my way back in after dinner, right?”_ _

__“Possibly.” Steve shrugs, well aware that Tony is more likely to eat his own weight in beef and crusty bread then fall into a food coma on the couch until Thor carries him to his bed… which was sort of the point._ _


	6. It’s not that Clint is really only comfortable when he’s up in high places...

**6\. It’s not that Clint is really only comfortable when he’s up in high places –like, say, the air vents. It’s just that he likes knowing everything that’s going on.**

              a. … and if Stark didn’t want him up there, he shouldn’t have made them larger than usual and supported to bear human weight.

              b. Actually. Wait… what was the question?


	7. Chapter 7

**7\. Contrary to popular belief, Fury actually likes Tony –has liked him from day one.**

             a. Day one was a dinner party that a five-year-old Tony had not been invited to, but crashed anyway.

                Nick Fury was the one who found him under the table setting up an elaborate trigger device that would set off an industrial strength whoopee cushion underneath the seat of one particular ~~blowhard~~ senator who’d been heard to say earlier in the evening (around about the time Tony had been trotted out in a tiny suit for the admiration of the crowd right before being swept back upstairs) that children should be seen and not heard.

                Nick retrieved the child, but left the booby trap in place.

                It went off when the senator leaned forward and pushed his seat back in order to address the assembled diners who had gone politely quiet as soon as he’d tapped his glass. The resulting noise echoed throughout dining room loud and long.

                Fury has never forgotten the look on the man’s face, not even when he went on to take a seat on the World Security Council.

                        b. Had Iron Man been anyone else, Fury probably would have let them die from the palladium and then appropriated the suit from their estate.

                                  i. The reason is this: there is nothing so rare as the person around whom an unmitigated asshole can be himself without holding back in the slightest, who will never be afraid or take offense or do anything except give as good as they get with a smile.

                                           1. Fury suspects, sometimes, that the feeling is mutual.

                                                      a. He is correct.


	8. Steve used to hate cooking.

**8.** **Steve used to hate cooking.**

  1. He learned because fast food wasn’t so much a thing in his time. If you wanted to eat and you didn’t have a wife, mother, or benevolent neighbor then you learned to cook. Maybe badly and a bit resentfully at first, but you learned.
  2. Once, it reminded him of a time when his family had to do too much with too little. 
  3. Later, it reminded him of the things he’d lost. 
    1. His mother humming over a stockpot during the weekend. 
    2. Bucky sitting unshaven in the corner reading out the interesting bits from the paper after a late night out while the bacon fried. 
    3. Peggy’s cocked eyebrow when she caught him using his helmet to soak beans that one time. 
    4. Howard’s swagger when he came to trade tins of smoked oysters and cured ham for help moving things in the lab.
    5. The laughter of his men, his commandos, stuck in some godforsaken forest in the middle of Austria or Poland or wherever they were that week, bitching good naturedly about being down to emergency rations (dense bars made of oat flour, cacao fat, chocolate, sugar, dry milk, and whatever else that sounded good in theory but was terrible in application) supplemented by what they could catch or forage and cook over a low smokeless fire in someone’s helmet.
      1. There is this one mission, supposedly one of the Howling Commando’s greatest achievements, which Steve cannot remember except for the sound of explosions and the faint scent of rabbit soup emanating from his headgear.
  4. Now he cooks because of the way it draws the team together. He doesn’t do it too often. Being Captain America is an all consuming job and often times ordering delivery before crawling into a hot shower is all he can manage.
    1. Clint is always the first to show. He just follows his nose and allows Steve to put him to work in exchange for the right to steal par-cooked scraps from whatever it is that Steve is making. Clint has a mysterious immunity to onion fumes that Steve frankly envies like hell, so chopping vegetables has become his unofficial chore.
    2. Natasha is next, if she’s in the tower. Sometimes she isn’t. She does not cook, but she sets the table and selects wine through some mystical divination that Steve will never understand. He understands beer and whiskey and the rule ‘white wine sits in the fridge; red wine sits on the table’, but the difference between Syrah and Beaujolais Nouveau is forever beyond him. 
    3. Bruce likes to sit at the bar and watch, meditative, and if Natasha is out then he will be the one to set the table, but he isn’t quite brave enough to venture into Tony’s wine cellar. Steve doesn’t blame him. There are bottles in there that were ancient even before he was old enough to be turned down by the Draft.
    4. Thor arrives last and sits at the bar out of everyone’s way and watches with a kind of fascination that is strange to see in a being who is older than every person in the Tower combined. It is a respectful admiration on Thor’s part, perhaps even a bit envious.“I am large.” He says mournfully. “My hands were not made for the deft slice of the blade nor to gently shape the loaf. I was born in the heart of the storm. War is my province and with this I must be satisfied.”
    5. Tony never shows up until someone goes to _get_ him, but then Tony once tried to create a nutritive gel that would completely replace his need to eat or drink for a week. It’s not that he doesn’t like food; he _loves_ food with a passion, but is of the opinion that it requires one’s full attention and he’s only got so much of that to go around. Still, once the food is in his presence and he’s become _aware_ of the food there is little that can get between him and his plate. 
      1. Steve kind of enjoys that, the way Tony is completely unabashedly vocal in his appreciation, so he reserves the ‘chore’ of taking Tony’s portion down to the lab for himself.



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I'm not sure what happened to the the formatting on this one but this is as good as I can get it. Sorry. :(


	9. Dating is very awkward if you're an Avenger.

**9\. Dating is very weird if you’re an Avenger. This doesn’t stop them all from trying.**

  1. Bruce does not date. Dating is complicated when anything that raises your heart rate has the potential to result in an enormous green rage monster. Despite this, he has a sort-of girlfriend by the name of Betty whose family drama is nothing short of insane. The Avengers (with the exception of Tony who never worries unless something’s already exploded once and not always then either) are somewhat worried about her influence on Bruce’s mental equilibrium. So far their worries have been unfounded, but given General Ross’s tendency to roll out the tanks whenever the Hulk is spotted they feel it can only be a matter of time.
    1. Tony is not worried because he knows Dr. Ross from the endless round of tech conferences. Her seemingly bland personality is the velvet glove over an incredibly loyal steel fist.
      1. Also, this is less widely known, but General Ross’s career hangs by a thread. A thread Nick Fury is saving to cut for a special occasion as a present to himself.
        1. Tony COULD tell the others this, but he has a running bet with himself about whether Fury is saving it for his next birthday or the next time HYDRA blows up the UN and he needs a pick me up. 
  2. No one can quite tell if Clint is seeing Coulson or if Natasha is seeing Clint or if Clint is double-timing them both, but that doesn’t explain the way Coulson pulls out Natasha’s seat for her at meetings or the way she sat white-knuckled next to Clint the day that Fury announced Coulson’s release from the hospital and that, oh, by the way… he was only clinically dead for about two and a half minutes before the EMT crew successfully restarted his heart.
    1. Fury dodged an arrow on his way back to his quarters that night. The arrow exploded, covering him in violet glow-in-the-dark paint powder. 
    2. When he got inside, he discovered his room had literally been filled with stacks upon stacks of pornography, no less than fourteen blow-up dolls, and a donkey wearing a silk negligee. 
    3. Shortly thereafter his daughter called him to ask some very awkward questions about a boy who had been seeing his granddaughter and who Fury may or may not have had deported on trumped up charges of espionage.
    4. The next morning he received a report that someone had broken into the secure facility where he kept his personal vehicle and had squashed the car literally flat.
    5. Steve Rogers did not speak to him again until a very brave junior agent forwarded Fury an Ebay listing for an entire set of vintage Captain America trading cards… which only cost $4000 and Steve kindly consented to sign. 
  3. Thor is perhaps the luckiest of them all. Dr. Foster works for SHIELD in a highly prestigious position as their authority on dimensional travel. They can see each other whenever they want and finding time for one another is just a matter of Jane putting a report to compile while they go grab a bite to eat in the cafeteria.
    1. Or go back to Thor’s suite in the tower for extremely loud sex.
      1. “Seriously? _Again_?” Tony growls as the walls start shaking. “How has she not dislocated a hip by now?”



“Wait.” Steve looks up from his sketchbook. “That’s not your music?”

Tony gives him one of _those_ looks; the ones that Steve occasionally gets from just about everyone when he has failed to cotton onto certain concepts.

“No, Steve. It is not.” Tony replies, suspiciously evenly. “For one, I am sitting in here with you. Two, I tend to lay off the bass boost unless I know everyone’s gone for the weekend. Three, I promise you that as unimaginative as you find the lyrics in my music, they tend to be a bit deeper than ‘Yes! More! Harder!’

Steve ducks his head. Actually a lot of modern music sounds… pretty much just like that insofar as he is concerned, but he has the feeling that this is not the time to bring up that point.

Also, now he feels incredibly awkward and uncomfortable. He respects Thor as a teammate. He just doesn’t particularly want to know anything at all about the man’s private time with his girl.

“Uh, you want to go grab lunch or something?” He offers because it’s getting louder and he knows from experience that once this starts up, it’s not going to stop for a while… which is another reason why he originally thought it was Tony’s irresponsible use of audio equipment. “Anywhere but here?”

“That sounds like a fantastic idea.” Tony groans and Bruce chooses that moment to wander past wearing a pair of noise cancelling headphones. Tony waves to get his attention. “Bruce, we’re getting the hell out of dodge. Want to evacuate with us? I’m considering flying out to Malibu until Dr. Foster’s leave is over.”

“Nah.” Bruce says and puts his headphones back on. “I’m good.”

“Don’t you _dare_ leave me here, you sons of bitches!” Says the AC vent.

  1. Steve dates. He does! He absolutely dates! He has even had sex! He would like for people to stop acting like he doesn’t and hasn’t because that is absolutely NOT TRUE.
    1. So maybe he doesn’t have someone over every other evening. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t _see_ people.
      1. … well, okay, maybe he is taking a break from dating right now.
        1. He has his reasons.
          1. His reasons are private.
    2. Tony’s relationship with Pepper is… complicated.




	10. Chapter 10

10\. Despite being on fairly amiable terms with most of Tony’s circle of friends and colleagues, Pepper doesn’t actually trust them any further than she can throw them; too many years of fielding reporters, would-be investors who want more from Stark Industries than their money is worth, and other disasters just waiting to happen.

  1. Pepper doesn’t actually like anyone on SHIELD’s payroll who isn’t Phil, which cuts out everyone on the team except Bruce, Thor, and Tony. 
    1. She hates that they differentiate between Iron Man and Tony, like they aren’t the same person and that somehow Tony is the lesser half. Pepper has seen what the Suit can do in the hands of someone who isn’t Tony, has looked straight down the barrel of a modified gatling gun and seen her future soaking into the shattered pavement.The idea that Iron Man somehow exists without Tony Stark is both ludicrous and likely to get someone killed before it’s all over.
    2. She _definitely_ hasn’t forgiven Natasha for infiltrating Stark Industries or that little trick with the syringe… nor is she terribly wild about Fury’s casual disregard for intellectual property law. 
      1. She’s territorial and she accepts it, tries to temper it with genuine love for those things and people she’s claimed for her own. It’s what makes her a good CEO and what has kept her from walking out on Tony years ago when he was squandering himself on cheap women and expensive liquor. 
      2. In some ways, Steve represents everything she has ever feared happening to Tony. She feels that he is trying to turn a creator into a soldier, when Iron Man started as a way to fix things not to break them in new ways. 
        1. She is definitely _not_ jealous of how close he’s become to the boyfriend she sees less and less except for those times when she watches him die on the news, surrounded by lawyers and secretaries yet powerless all the same. 
          1. …but she thinks she can forgive all that and forget it, just so long as Steve keeps being there to save the day, to pull Tony out of the fire, to catch him when he falls. Because that’s something Pepper can’t do anymore. The fires are no longer figurative and, to be honest, these days she’s running on empty just trying to keep up.
            1. So no. She doesn’t _like_ Steve Rogers –but she _does_ trust him. 
              1. To be there when she can’t be anymore. 




	11. Thor LOVES Midgard

**11\. Thor loves _everything_ about Midgard. This is not a secret, really, but people don’t really get it all the same.**

  1. He loves video games, public transport, amusement parks, molecular gastronomy, petting zoos, comic books, animated television shows, musical theater, fast food at three am, and pancakes at five in the evening. You name it, he loves it.
    1. This is why he’s harder on common thugs than he is on the most heinous supervillain, because they destroy the everyday beauty and wonder of Midgard without even recognizing its value.




	12. Steve gets a Brooklyn accent sometimes.

**12\. Steve gets a Brooklyn accent sometimes. If he’s just woken up or when he’s startled then ‘coffee’ becomes ‘ _cawfee_ ’ and ‘Long Island’ becomes ‘ _Lawn Guysland’._**

  1. Tony will never admit it, but he secretly loves hearing Steve’s accent slip out and will go out of his way to make it happen. He lives for the moment when that intrusive ‘g’ makes an appearance and Steve’s diphthongs sketch out his entire childhood like a roadmap.
    1. Steve may have figured it out, which goes a long ways towards explaining the reason why his carefully learned diction tends to slip whenever they’re alone. His mother would smack him, but Steve finds it hard to care when Tony smiles like that. 




	13. The night Pepper leaves for good, Tony doesn’t shut himself up in his workshop.

**13\. The night Pepper leaves for good, Tony doesn’t shut himself up in his workshop. He doesn’t head for the whiskey or drown himself in Rock and Roll. Instead he sits in the media room, has JARVIS queue up some Disney movies, and waits.**

  1. One by one, the Avengers trickle in. No one admits to enjoying the Lion King, but everyone naturally gravitates into the room when Hakuna Matata starts playing.
    1. Natasha tucks her bare toes under Clint’s butt and leans against Coulson’s side, frowning whenever the hyenas are on screen. 
    2. Thor perches on the ottoman in rapt attention with his fists clutched before him in anticipation of the scene where Simba takes his place on Pride Rock for the first time and roars into the storm. 
    3. Bruce clasps Tony’s shoulder briefly as he passes on his way to a cleverly disguised barcalounger.
    4. Steve sits next to Tony, stiffly at first, because the barcalounger is usually his spot. He relaxes after a bit and then casually slings his arm across the back of the sofa behind Tony’s head. By the time Elton John starts singing about peace in the evening and the world in harmony, Tony can’t quite remember the reasons why he shouldn’t lean to the left instead of the right.
  2. The next morning Tony wakes up alone in his own bed. He can’t quite remember hearing the end credits, but he’s sure he made it as far as the fight with Scar. He suspects Thor hauled him off to bed as the god is wont to do, but Thor has never pulled his shoes off or tucked him under the blankets… and there’s the lingering scent of classic old spice clinging to his shirt. 



Steve is making waffles when Tony staggers into the communal area. Clint is perched on top of the refrigerator hulling strawberries with a sort of manic glee. Coulson is reading something out of the paper, which sounds suspiciously like a cover story for one of their less public missions, Natasha is setting the table with fresh flowers, and Bruce is rearranging the furniture with Thor to compensate for the chair Pepper took with her when she left.

Coulson catches Tony’s eye and kicks a chair out for him with the no-nonsense sort of ‘I have a taser and Supernanny is out on DVD’ look he reserves for those times he feels Tony is about to do or say something stupid. Tony sees that look a _lot_.

Tony sits and Steve puts an enormous Belgian waffle onto a plate for him, drenched with cream and the strawberries they can have in the kitchen now.

That is the moment when Tony realizes that he’s going to be okay.

“Good waffle, Cap.” He says around his first bite, well aware that he’s got cream in his moustache. “If you ever get tired of this super hero gig, I might try to hire you on as a personal chef.”

“I might accept.” Steve shoots back and then turns a dull red before turning back to the waffle iron leaving Tony frozen in place, fork halfway between plate and mouth, before he realizes that the rush of heat in his head means that he’s blushing too and that no one is laughing at him.

He’s not real sure what to make of that.


	14. In her heart of hearts, Natasha is still a ballerina..

**14.In her heart of hearts, Natasha is still a ballerina who only moonlights as a spy. She knows the Russian Ballet is never going to call, but everyone has a lie they tell themselves to get through the day.**

  1. Once, she was good enough to go pro… but then her figure came in. Successful professional dancers have a certain silhouette that Natasha lost around the time she was fourteen.
  2. Still, only Coulson and Clint know that she goes to the studio every Tuesday and Thursday for practice, not to maintain a contact. 




	15. This may come as a shock to some, but Tony Stark doesn’t actually hate his father.

**15\. This may come as a shock to some, but Tony Stark doesn’t actually hate his father.**

  1. It is not because Howard Stark was a good father. He was really wretched at the job, but he had the good sense to recognize it which is why Tony is an only child.
  2. Tony has deep conflicted feelings about his father, but he is very nearly forty years old. He is very tired of people blaming his personality defects on an unhappy childhood. His nature is every bit as much to blame as his nurture, _fuckyouverymuch_ armchair psychoanalysts.
    1. Moreover, he is starting to understand what it must have been like for his father; being the smartest man in the room. Explaining a concept to someone in minute detail, but they still don’t get it because they can’t; because they live on the opposite side of some intangible divide that neither side can quite bridge no matter how hard they try. 
    2. Tony can barely handle _adults_. He doesn’t even want to try and _imagine_ how he could tackle parenthood. He can’t imagine himself being of much use until the kid was really able to talk and had the appropriate education under his or her belt… and maybe not even then. 
      1. There was a brief span of time starting after Tony graduated MIT when he and Howard actually… talked. Laughed. _Enjoyed_ each other’s company.



He’d been on this facility tour with the old man with some fossil moaning on about how they didn’t need to upgrade the fan systems because the systems in place were still 40% efficient.

Tony had been trying to behave. Really, he had, but that was too much and he broke. “Look, asshole.” He snapped. “If one of your engineers came into work every day, did his job for exactly three hours and twelve minutes, and then spent the rest of the day playing Minesweeper and unplugging all the coffee machines then you would fire his ass. Why the hell would you expect less performance from your equipment?”

The admin had been old school, secure in his position, and unimpressed by mouthy seventeen year olds. “Well, if you think you can replace it using our nonexistent budget for upgrades, then by all means go ahead.” He said, sneering, and… well. Tony never could back down from a challenge.

As it turned out, Tony was able to not only repair the cooling units with a box of spare parts and the component pieces of a malfunctioning coffee maker, he was able to create a new system that achieved an improvement of 20% over the old one’s peak performance.

“It won’t last over a year.” Howard observed, squatting down amongst the scattered pipes and scraps in his shirtsleeves with his tie tossed over one shoulder. “But we’ll have plenty of space to refine this prototype in time to swap it out for new.”

Then he clapped Tony on the shoulder and said, possibly for the first time ever, “Well done, son.” Then he pointed at a complicated bit of wiring. “Now explain to me why you put a junction exactly _there_.”

That night they designed a flying car over dinner. Just because they could. It wasn’t suited for a consumer market, but Howard laughed and told Tony that not every idea had to be marketable. Sometimes you had to invent something just for fun otherwise what was the point?

Seven weeks later, Howard and Maria Stark died.

So no. Tony isn’t angry at his father at all. He’s too busy mourning something he only got the barest glimpse of before it was gone forever.





	16. Tony and Steve get together like this:

**16\. Tony and Steve get together like this:**

It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon and everyone else is out shopping because Thor has finally admitted he only owns the one outfit and that will just not stand.

Steve stays behind because he is waiting for a package from Amazon.com and he had to be there to sign for it. Tony stays because he hasn’t showered since the day before and no one wants to wait for him to complete his elaborate grooming rituals. So they are sitting on the couch watching the Winter Olympics while Tony tries to explain the point of Curling to Steve, who is only skeptical and increasingly distracted by the shape of Tony’s mouth, by the motion of his hands.




Then somehow they’re kissing and that’s pretty all right. Steve likes it. Likes the rasp of Tony’s beard, the taste of cider on his tongue, Tony’s arm around the back of his neck dragging him down onto the sofa.

They never see the end of the game, but that’s okay. Steve really didn’t really care about the program to begin with. It isn’t until the doorbell rings while Tony’s fumbling at Steve’s belt and Steve is tugging Tony’s shirt over his head that either of them remember that they’re technically in a public (semi-public) area.

Steve signs for his package, proud of the fact that he manages not to blush, and then drags Tony into his room because he’s wanted to see the other man tangled in white sheets turned pale blue by the light of the arc reactor.

Later they talk in quiet voices sprawled on the couch while watching a hockey game with Tony leaned back against Steve’s chest. Steve is rapidly developing a habit of sliding one hand up under Tony’s shirt to cover the arc reactor with the broad plane of his palm. Tony squirms at first, but settles down. Relaxes even.

“No one much likes touching it.” He shrugs. “If they get to see it at all. Pep never quite forgave me for the time she had to replace it.”

“Hmmm.” Is all Steve says. The arc reactor is often on his mind. He’s a tactician. He can’t help it and sometimes that means his nightmares include EMP grenades along with ice and pitch black water.

They’re still like that when the team arrives home.

Hawkeye is the first to arrive through the door. He looks at them, looks at Steve’s hand up Tony’s shirt, and then turns his head and shouts over his shoulder. “NAT OWES ME FIFTY BUCKS.”

“Shut up!” Comes her reply from somewhere down the hall. “I do not! It’s still the four o’clock for another ten minutes!”

“And that means you both owe me forty.” Coulson interjects smoothly, slipping out of his sleek black coat. He stops and glances up at the ceiling. “Unless… JARVIS?”

“I’m afraid Doctor Banner has taken the pot, Agent Coulson.” The AI replies, not unkindly. “Captain Rogers initiated things at 3:15, which took place during his block of time.”

“Excellent.” Bruce says as he toes his shoes off at the entrance. “ Everyone owes me thirty dollars. I’m going to use it to order sushi, so write down your orders on the pad by the phone.” He smiles at Tony who gives him the thumbs up and Steve, who is hiding his face behind Tony’s shoulder. “Congratulations, you two. It’s about time.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this fic mainly as a way to get certain scenes out of my head without having to construct plots around each one. Then I went and gave it a plot anyway. :P


End file.
